tulamide's Forum Posts

  • Whoa there guys, let's take a deeeeep breath

    My post was an answer to the arrogance and ignorance of raymond and to noone else. I hope you didn't get this wrong, raymond just misused your thread, that's why my answer was posted here and not in discussion, where raymond's and my posts should be.

    But I learned a lot of Mr Almighty. Being helpful means you're condescending. Right. Understood.

  • I had a look at the tracker. It is reported and still open:

    http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2931401&group_id=207820&atid=1003219

    So I would say it is a known bug )

  • You're attacking the wrong. We at least try to help - you don't.

    First of all, programming doesn't mean knowing C. Programming is a process of telling the computer, what you want him to do. You use whatever tools help you achieving this. C/C++/C#/Pascal/Basic/Construct/Flash/Python/lua ... you name it.

    Second, whatever tool you choose, there is a core part that is shared among all of them. That is the basics you need to know, wether you like it or not.

    Third, you need to have the wish to learn by doing.

    Really, that post sounds so arrogant, like you want to sit in your chair, crossing your arms and telling everybody: "Now feed me." And while you are complaining, that help has to be done your way of thinking, because that certainly is the only right way, as noone is right but you - while moaning so, you do nothing of all that. Not one single code example from you, no cap file, no wiki entry, nothing.

    I for one at least try to help, and btw I posted a link to an example cap file that covers all of it. So there is the visual example you're talking about, but I'm sure you don't know about it, because you hadn't have the time to revise it. Attacking the one's who are helping is much more important.

    Last, if you would have read the posts carefully and not only parts you can jump on, you would have seen, that the timeline object does not work fine for him, there is a gap of 1 second. That certainly is the reason for silent to try to help with hints, explanations and a cap file.

    I am no tutor, and I don't see, why I should act as one. You want the process of programming not to happen? Well, then you can't develop games. One does not happen without the other.

  • Construct is not well documented. Yes, that's true. We don't have a reference of every object's ACE, we don't have a reference for how they are meant to be used, syntax limitations, etc.

    On the other hand, it is so hard to contribute.

    Just a few weeks after registering on the forum, I wanted to help with an angle problem. I proposed something I used in other languages, assuming that an angle as a value in degrees would always be in the range 0-360, what in Construct is not always the case (But even with the angle being something like -170 or 412, I still not quite understand why I'm not allowed to use math like abs(abs(angle % 360 ) - 180) to test for certain directions or a range of angles etc). I quickly learned then about "anglediff" and comparisons like "is clockwise". The point is, I knew they were there, but it was nowhere explained why they are there. Ashleys answers were very helpful but they are not on the wiki although they are essential (especially because they come from one of the developers)

    I wanted to do a beginner's guide of creating effects. Soon after starting I ran into wierd behavior. HLSL intrinsic functions that are supposed to work with profile ps_2_0 do not. "noise" just does nothing, whereas "trunc" at least gives an error message (although it shouldn't), etc. So I gave up.

    I wanted to do a in-depth tutorial about using particles. Guess what, I ran into bugs like setting the rate by code not working when in unlimited frame mode and a bunch of others. So I gave up.

    I wanted to document the binary object - running into bugs (like Get Cursor Position not working).

    I submitted bugs to the tracker, asked in the forum, but: How am I supposed to document something that doesn't work or we are not sure about why exactly it exists?

    That is why I reduced my efforts to reading the help forum, answering as much as I can. And probably some dozens of other people too.

  • You may be right, newt. After your post I played around with the imagepoints. If I delete the point named "1" I can export without problems, as soon as I add one, it crashes again.

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  • As far as I can say, the crashing only occurs when trying to export the frames of Enemy1. I had no problems exporting TalkPers1, key, Key2 or Pillar.

    Interesting that Enemy1 is the only object of the 5 that has its default animation renamed to "Walking", while in Start Animation it still says "Default". However, just setting Start Animation to "Walking" didn't solve the problem, but it may have something to do with it.

    Sorry for not being able to help more.

  • The visual representation can be done in so many ways (textbox, sprites, colors, etc) that you have to find yourself the most accurate one.

    The counter itself is very easy to implement. Create a global variable, give it the value of your choice, substract in certain steps (e.g. every 1000 miliseconds) and check if the global reaches <= 0

    For an example of how to visually represent time you may want to have a look at this thread (includes downloadable example)

  • Not exactly what you are looking for, but the technique is similar:

    The thread:

    The file: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ojmtyiiwg ... tantly.cap

    Also, there is the custom movement behavior. Should work fine too.

  • Just a reminder: There already is a sytem expression for padding, called ZeroPad. Instead of

    global('Hour') & ":" & Right("00" & str(global('Minute')), 2) & " " & global('AMPM')[/code:3v2hg9o8]

you can simplify by
[code:3v2hg9o8]global('Hour') & ":" & ZeroPad(global('Minute'), 2) & " " & global('AMPM')[/code:3v2hg9o8]

  • I think this one was missing. I tried to make the parameters where possible similar to the ones of the gradient object.

    A picture can tell so much more than I could describe (click for a larger version):

    How it works

    Best way to use this effect is by creating a sprite with the smallest size you can handle (e.g. 8x8, 4x2, etc). This way, you don't add much to VRAM. Apply the effect and resize the sprite on the layout to your needs. The sprite does not need to have a texture - just create a sprite and apply the effect.

    Don't resize the canvas in the picture editor because this would add to VRAM!

    How to use it

    The parameters are:

    • Direction - Set this to 1 to make Color1 the inner color, every other value makes Color2 the inner color
    • Color1 Red, Green, Blue - The channel values of the first color in percent
    • Color1 Opacity - The opacity of Color1 in percent
    • Color2 Red, Green, Blue - The channel values of the second color in percent
    • Color2 Opacity - The opacity of Color2 in percent
    • Opaque? - Set this to 1 if you would like to have an oval shape of the gradient's size

    Every percentage value may be set outside the range 0-100%

    Installation

    Download RadialGradient.fx and put in the effects folder of Construct.

    RadialGradient.cap, the source of the screenshot, is also available.

    I hope it extends the capabilities of Construct.

    I will keep creating effects, some may be provided soon (I just don't know if you understand this sentence as a promise or a threat )

  • The folder "my documents" (hope it is called so in english^^) is the default storage location for saved files. It should be writable without admin rights.

  • Also, is Construct eligible to be used?

    From their contest rules, part 4:

    "Games developed using middleware/engine software are eligible but only if commercial rights are granted with the license to use that software. Such requirements should be reviewed carefully by the Entrant prior to submission."

    So I see no problem here. Compare to this thread: http://www.scirra.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=245&p=45708#p45708

  • It's a huge mess of nested if statements at the moment. It works... but I wonder if there is some sort of easier way to accomplish the same thing? It basically opens doors when switches are thrown in the correct order, or when clues are activated in the right order.

    Any ideas? Advice? or just click all the - signs again and hope for the best?

    That's what loops are for

    In order to use loops effectively you need to redesign your work. Naming conventions and assigning of values should be used in a way that makes it easier to loop them. For example the first switch:

    Rearrange the assigning of the values so that you constantly substract/add in a row if switchnum is 1-4 and constantly add/substract from 5-6. Name your animations in a "loopable" way (like AnimA, AnimB, ... to name a very easy and not very informative one). When the preparing is done you could do something like this:

    Reducing 16 events down to 5.

  • what events/actions would i have to do for a still layout with nothing moving to go to the next after 5 seconds? i tried

    at start of layout, subtract from private variable of titled background "countdown" 100 * TimeDelta, but that didnt seem to work. i didnt expect it to, as i dont even know really how to use timedelta.

    If you just want to go to another layout after a fixed time elapsed there are easier ways. One is the System expression Compare time. Set it to compare "equal to" and 5000 milliseconds (=5 sec) and all is fine

  • EDIT: Mediafire seems to be down. I can't reach the server. Please be patient I hope the server will be up soon...

    Edit 2: Maybe it's just my provider or a router on the way, I can sometimes reach it sometimes not. If you see the thumbnails, you can also download the effect...

    "Hey, there already exists Greyscale/GreyscalePlus, why do we need another grey shader?"

    It depends. Maybe you will never need GreyShade, but its advantage is its flexibility. Converting colors to shades of grey is a process based on luminance weights and the assumption that a certain weight is the right one. I know of at least three different luminance weight models.

    First, let's have a look at the original colors in this example. (All images are thumbnails, click to see a larger version)

    One is simply called 1/3 weight and is used by Greyscale/Greyscale Plus. It evenly weights the luminance of all three color channels (Red, Green, Blue).

    The formula is Y' = 0.333R' + 0.333G' + 0.333B'

    This is what it looks like.

    Another one is used by NTSC & PAL/SECAM & JPEG, and it weights the green channel almost double as high as the red channel and more than five times higher than the blue channel.

    The formula is Y' = 0.299R' + 0.587G' + 0.114B'

    This is what it looks like.

    The third one I know of is used by Photoshop and I can't reproduce it with an effect because it is a three-pass-model and effects in Construct need to be one-pass. The model takes into account the monitors gamma working space and weights green almost ten times higher than blue and more than three times higher than red. After a transformation into linear Gamma = 1, the formula is

    Y = 0.2126R'^2.2 + 0.7152G'^2.2 + 0.0724B'^2.2

    R' = G' = B' = Y^(1/2.2)

    With GreyShade you can even do more. You can weight one channel dominant setting the others to zero. You may overload every value getting over-saturated colors, hard falloffs etc. Look at these two examples.

    How to use it

    There are four values you can alter at any time.

    Red Luminance Weight (Weight the luminance of the red channel as float)

    Green Luminance Weight (Weight the luminance of the green channel as float)

    Blue Luminance Weight (Weight the luminance of the blue channel as float)

    Intensity (The amount that is merged to the original as a percentage)

    If you want to keep the original luminance, just make sure the three weights are positive values and sum up to 1 (one). But remember you may also use extreme values outside of this range, like -2.5 or 17. Also the intensity may be set to values like 178% or -342%

    Installation

    Download GreyShade.fx and put it in the effects folder of Construct. You may also want to download the demo cap, that allows you to play around with different values.

    GreyShade.fx

    greyshade.cap